i like to think i'm the mess you'd wear with pride
by TheVerbalThing ComesAndGoes
Summary: "We're not friends." These are her words, not yours. Still, you can't help but wonder just how, exactly, she would define the two of you if she were ever asked. Santana/Rachel friendship.


i like to think i'm the mess you'd wear with pride

disclaimer: song (_I Go to the Barn_) and title belong to Band of Horses; characters aren't mine

setting: season 2

Summary: "We're not friends." These are her words, not yours. Still, you can't help but wonder just how, exactly, she would define the two of you if she were ever asked. Santana/Rachel friendship. AU_ish_

**A/N**: i'm not entirely sure what this is, but it kind of just snuck up on me and decided it needed to be written. enjoy, read, review. :)

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><p><em>well I'd like to think I'm the mess you'd wear with pride.<br>like some empty dress on the bed you've laid out for tonight.  
>maybe I'll tell you sometime.<em>

_time. sometime._

_(and you were right.)_

_right.  
>you were right.<em>  
>-<p>

You're not friends.

These are her words - not yours - but still you can't help but wonder just how, exactly, she would define the relationship between the two of you if she were ever asked. (And you are more than slightly curious about why it is that she feels the need to reassure herself of this - you two _not_ being friends - every time she talks to you, especially since there's no else around to _see_ you two hanging out together.)

She's listening to a playlist of unreleased Amy Winehouse songs on your iPod; you tell yourself - and her - that you weren't _actively _thinking about her when you compiled the music - it just wasn't until after you downloaded the songs that you remembered Santana's affinity for the artist.

"We're not friends," she snaps, answering a question you haven't asked - and would probably never be brave enough to voice, anyway. "We're not gonna, like, braid each other's hair after this." But she slides her own iPod towards you, the LCD screen lighting up to display a list of songs from the _Rent _soundtrack and you smother a small smile behind your hand. Santana has always been an intimidating force even from afar - because she was beautiful (in a way that was just so different from Quinn); because she was the head cheerio's second-in-command; because she didn't seem to be afraid of anything - long before she joined glee club, and even before she started following Quinn's lead in finding new and creative ways to torture you (and your "band of losers" - her words).

You nod, swiftly, and somehow manage to swallow down the lump in your throat. You shouldn't feel anything close to sadness; she's only telling you what you know to be the truth. "I know."

And you _do_ know. You've recognized that you have a propensity for being a little naive, a little too trusting and sometimes - okay, _most_ of the time - you are all too willing to only see the best in people who often prove later that they've never really deserved it. But you're not stupid. Santana Lopez would never risk her place on the social hierarchy for something as insignificant as a friendship with a person like you. (Even if, from what you've seen and the things people don't hesitate to say about her when she's not around, she doesn't seem to have a lot of _real_ friends at all.)

"Those people just don't realize that there is a life that continues on after high school," your father said once, the one and only time you told your parents about the pre-game ritual the football players and their Cheerio girlfriends have of tossing a slushie in your face right before lunch - but only because it was the one and only time when they came home from work early, giving you no time to change out of the red-orange stained (and expensive) white button-down.

(Daddy had tears in his eyes; he's always been the more emotional one of the two. Dad's first instinct was to call the school and every parent of the football players and cheerleaders; he's always been the one driven by making a point through litagation. They were both angry and they were both hurt; but you could see, more than anything, that they blamed themselves - which only made you decide not to tell them about the next time you get a slushie to the face: a cherry red that ruined the white cashmere sweater they gave you for your birthday.)

"They won't know what to do when it's over and their friends aren't there to tell them what to do and how to think."

Sometimes, you think Santana isn't one of those people. She just knows what it takes to survive going to high school in a small town like Lima; she knows the rules and she knows how to play them - or play _around_ them. (But only sometimes - like when you're randomly assigned as duet partners and she isn't calling you "Hobbit" or "man-hands".)

She's the one who sought you out, after all. (Sort of.) You haven't eaten lunch in the cafeteria since your relationship with Finn ended and, to be honest, you've always preferred the quiet and familiarity of the choir room, rather than the screaming judgment of the cafeteria. The first day they ate lunch together, she didn't leave when she saw you sitting at the piano bench, like you expected.

You're not friends - you know this - but somehow, in the midst of Brittany's new yet suddenly serious relationship with Artie, Finn and Quinn's second-time-around reunion, and a duet assignment, you got stuck with each other.

(You think the only mutual ground the two of you can reach without argument is not to pity each other.)

"Why are you here?" The words burst out of you before you can think better of it. They don't sound as harsh as they would coming from her mouth, you know, but this is the fourth day you've spent together, in the choir room during lunch, in complete silence. You don't talk to each other - definitely a challenge for you - but you've grown to accept her presence and the fact that she's choosing to come here, and somehow even finding a small comfort in it. Still, you warn yourself not to get used to it. (Holding on so tightly to things - relationships, friendships - and wanting them too much has always been your undoing.)

She raises one perfectly arched eyebrow, arms crossed over her body in a pose that is permanently defensive. (You know the feeling.)

At the look on her face, you start to fumble. "I just - I mean, our duet project is finished so you don't _have_ to stay here, and I was wondering why you would-"

Santana shakes her head then, dropping her hands to her lap and picking at the edges of her red, white, and black Cheerios issued skirt. "...How do _you_ deal with it?"

"Deal with what?'

"Being alone, like, _all_ the time." Her tone isn't vicious, like you would expect it to be, saying something like that; like you know it _can_ be. For once, she's not actually insulting you. It's an odd feeling.

You have a feeling her question is more or less related to her own situation and you almost say that she's not alone, that she has the Cheerios and glee club - but then you remember that there's a difference between being teammates and actually being _friends_.

A shrug is your attempt to hide any hurt you feel at the thought. "I get used to it. I just...focus on other things. Good things."

"Like _what_?" she scoffs and you know, for her, the thought is nearly impossible. She is abrasive and always out for her own best interest and, honestly, outside of maybe one person you know that no one in this room actually _likes _her. You're not so different. (And you think she knows this.)

"Well, I have my music and other extracurricular activities besides glee that I'm involved in and, of course, my budding career as a Broadway star and...you, well, you have Brittany, right?" But you've seen the way Brittany's been hanging around Artie and the divide that's put between them and you don't think that's true anymore.

Santana stands up, then, grabbing her bag and slinging it quickly over her shoulder. "No. I don't."

"...I know that this probably won't mean much, coming from me, but you don't _need _her as much as you think to feel important. You're - you're just as good as you are...on your own." As pathetic as you know it sounds, it's exactly how you felt after Finn broke up with you; you tried _so hard_ to get him and to keep him and the majority of your relationship was spent trying to earn the that came with being the quarterback's girlfriend. It was validation, something you needed after years of slushies and defaced yearbook pictures and obscene comments penned on the bathroom walls.

Santana stops, her posture completely straight, letting you know she's heard every word. But she doesn't respond; she simply leaves, the choir room door swinging shut quietly behind her.

The next day, it's fifteen minutes into lunch and you don't think she's coming. You didn't say a lot, by your standards, but for Santana the conversation was probably too much too close to being a "heart-to-heart" for her to feel comfortable.

A paper plate of french fries slides across the piano towards you.

"Here."

Eyebrows raised, you look up to find Santana looking at you. She sighs, looking to the floor for just a moment, before looking up to meet your eye. She scowls, letting out a scoff, as she rounds the piano and sitting on the bench. "Just take it. They gave me extra. It's way too many carbs and Sue's already on my ass lately, because of all the crap Quinn's told her. I swear, when it comes to ratting me out, her mouth is almost as big as her stretch marks-"

She rolls her eyes, probably at the wide-eyed and anxiously expectant look on your face. "It's not a big deal, Berry." She snatches up a fry before dipping it into a vat of ketchup. "Just fries."

"Right. Of course. Because we're not friends. I know." But still, you sit down on the piano bench, the plate of french fries sitting between you and the two of you work your way through them, Santana stating her pleasure with the diminishing presence of animal sweaters in your wardrobe.

"...still need to work on the plaid skirts, though. I thought one of your dads was a lawyer, not Farmer friggin' John. I mean, it works in a kind of school-girl fantasy kind of way, but as for everyday wear?" She scoffs, tilting the emery board she's holding to the side as she starts to file her nails and you keep eating the fries. "Besides, knee socks and Mary-Janes look ridiculous on anyone over the age of six."

You can't help but roll your eyes at the way the casual insult rolls almost seamlessly off her tongue. But you also can't help but laugh a little; you're beginning to take yourself a little less seriously and she's beginning to be a little more open.

(And she shows up for the rest of the week.)

You're not friends.

"We're not friends," she murmurs, painting her thumbnail and sliding the bottle of black nail polish towards you. She moves on to her pointer finger, then fans out her hand and blows, trying to make it dry faster.

But you still smile, picking up the bottle and painting your left pinky.

"I know."


End file.
